UFC Undisputed 2010 Walkthrough & Strategy Guide

Not only do you have techniques to deal with, your character will be tracked on his CRED (Credibility) and POP (Popularity). CRED affects how quickly you are allowed to upgrade your trainer or sparring partner, which in turn lead to more attribute or skill points quicker. POP affects how well the sponsors like you, and high sponsor relations lead to bigger CRED boosts as well. Both CRED and POP combine to also affect how high you climb on the card, though your straight win-loss record is a big factor there as well.

Once you get to the UFC level, you will be asked (arguably too much) if you want to take part in events, like pre-fight interviews or predictions on UFC fights. Participating in any of these events will earn you some CRED or POP. The downside is that participating in any event other than attending your own weigh-in eats up a week that you could have spent training, sparring, or working on a technique. Attending an event will lower your fatigue, but not nearly as much as just choosing Rest from the calendar. It's our experience that the boosts you get from CRED and POP events are not worth giving up training. Because you get a high amount of CRED overall if you win consistently (from both the win itself and from all the sponsors), it makes more sense to spend your time improving your odds of winning (i.e., by training) than doing a silly pre-fight interview. And don't worry: neither Dana White nor the fans care if you blow off every single interview offer, so it's in your best interest to simply not do them.

Sometimes, you are coerced to do them, such as post-fight interviews with Joe Rogan after you win. These don't take any time away from your character, and they actually give your character a bit of a POP or CRED boost free of charge. Depending on how you answer Joe's questions, it impacts not only that, but how other fighters feel about you.

See, every named fighter in your division has a relationship meter of sorts with you, ranging from Rival at the minimum to Friend at the maximum. Upsetting your opponent actually gives you more POP, in the sense that everyone knows a bad guy (think Brock Lesnar: love him or hate him, you know his name). Being an opponent's friend by constantly respecting them gives you discounts at the same camp they attend; that is, you'll gain a multiplier allowing you to train fewer times for the same number of training points, making it easier to learn and master techniques. If you disrespect your opponents, your POP will gain faster, leading indirectly to more CRED (from sponsors), leading to faster promotions up the card.

To gain CRED from sponsors, you need to deck out your fighter in sponsor logos. To do this, hit RT/R2 until you'll at the My Fighter tab between fights, then press Y/Triangle to customize your fighter. From there, go to your gear, and select Custom Trunks, Custom Shirt, and Custom Hat. You can use any base layer you want, and then can affix sponsor logos however you wish, up to 10 per shirt or trunks and up to 5 for the hat. Fighting in any fight regardless of result will gain you some CRED from each of your sponsors. Further, the more you stick with one sponsor, the more it upgrades and gives you even more CRED. So, while THQ might give you 10 CRED per logo per fight at first, if you stick with THQ through enough fights and get your POP high enough, THQ will start to give you 50 CRED per logo per fight.

Eventually, sponsors will like you so much that they'll give you sponsor trunks, sponsor shirts, and sponsor hats. These can be used as bases but can have logos as well, essentially giving you one more sponsor spot for you. I'm sure there's a philosophical issue when it comes to pimping out your own body for more CRED, but really, no one is going to care while you're kicking the crap out of people.